A type of self-propelled machine for harvesting and boxing leaf vegetables that principally comprises a supporting frame with wheels or tracks and, on the frame, a front cutting bar associated with means for transferring the harvested product longitudinally towards boxes placed on a flat area at the rear of the machine is already known. The cutting bar can use a belt or alternating blades, but in either case it is arranged in the same way as the transferring devices, on the frame axis, in line with the forward direction of the machine. At the rear of the machine a platform is provided on which are placed the boxes and the workers that handle the boxes to begin with when empty and then when full.
Such a machine however has a relatively low productivity capacity and, in particular, has the drawback of not being easy to use in greenhouses with coverings supported by arches, similar to a tunnel, with the highest point in the center and the lowest points along the sides. This is due to the fact that the machine, both because of its height, which cannot be reduced below a certain limit, and the indispensable presence of the workers and bench areas for the boxes on the rear platform, can move freely in the central, highest part of the tunnel, but cannot move near the margins of the cultivated areas without interfering with the supporting arches, where the covering is obviously lower. And this applies unless the number of benches for boxes is drastically reduced, to the detriment however of the autonomy of the machine which in this case would have to stop more often to download the full boxes and collect more empty ones.